I am a bad teacher!
Today was my last day of class before winter break. I am sticking around Montlucon, however -- except for a short trip to Moulins Sunday to race! -- until Monday and with Meredith gone, I'm a little bored. Hopefully I can use this time to update a little more than I have been.
On Fridays I teach two classes 'with' a real licenced English teacher. She's actually French but the first time I met her I was sure she was English: Her accent is perfect and she speaks very naturally. When we work together, she plans the lessons and then we split the class so we each have half for 45 minutes and then switch. It works out quite well for me because all I really have to do is show up and talk.
Today when I took the first half of the class, I only had six students. We were working on Christmas vocabulary and, while they were filling in a worksheet, I got a little bored and drew a picture of a doorway with mistletoe on the chalkboard. Of course, my drawing was pretty terrible (how does one draw a mistletoe anyway?) so I had to explain to the kids what I was trying to show. My French was working really smoothly today, so it was really easy to explain that mistletoe is a plant that we hang above a doorway during the Christmas season. Where I got into trouble, however, is when I explained that people have to kiss when they find themselves underneath it together. In French, the noun 'kiss' is not very similar to the verb 'to kiss.' It is, however, very similar to a certain four-letter word that can be used as a verb. I stumbled over this part of the explanation, and the kids all gave me blank stares. I panicked for a moment thinking I'd spit out the wrong word. Turns out I hadn't, and they taught me how to say mistletoe in French: houx
In addition, this was the more advanced half of the class so we ran through the Christmas lesson quickly and the kids ended up just coloring the worksheet while I asked them what they were doing for Christmas. This turned just plain gossip when one of the girls asked if I had a boyfriend and then they proceeded to tell me about some of the boys who have crushes on me, and then about who likes who at this school.
On Fridays I teach two classes 'with' a real licenced English teacher. She's actually French but the first time I met her I was sure she was English: Her accent is perfect and she speaks very naturally. When we work together, she plans the lessons and then we split the class so we each have half for 45 minutes and then switch. It works out quite well for me because all I really have to do is show up and talk.
Today when I took the first half of the class, I only had six students. We were working on Christmas vocabulary and, while they were filling in a worksheet, I got a little bored and drew a picture of a doorway with mistletoe on the chalkboard. Of course, my drawing was pretty terrible (how does one draw a mistletoe anyway?) so I had to explain to the kids what I was trying to show. My French was working really smoothly today, so it was really easy to explain that mistletoe is a plant that we hang above a doorway during the Christmas season. Where I got into trouble, however, is when I explained that people have to kiss when they find themselves underneath it together. In French, the noun 'kiss' is not very similar to the verb 'to kiss.' It is, however, very similar to a certain four-letter word that can be used as a verb. I stumbled over this part of the explanation, and the kids all gave me blank stares. I panicked for a moment thinking I'd spit out the wrong word. Turns out I hadn't, and they taught me how to say mistletoe in French: houx
In addition, this was the more advanced half of the class so we ran through the Christmas lesson quickly and the kids ended up just coloring the worksheet while I asked them what they were doing for Christmas. This turned just plain gossip when one of the girls asked if I had a boyfriend and then they proceeded to tell me about some of the boys who have crushes on me, and then about who likes who at this school.
posted by Paige @ 10:48 PM
2 Comments:
At 11:11 PM,
Anonymous said…
How old are these kids? Crushes? Boyfriends? I guess they could be between 10 and 13 - older than that and the boyfriends become more serious. And, I'm guessing it was girls who were doing the talking. Boys are clueless about this stuff and don't talk about it (and the not talking part continues for years).
It's fascinating to hear your French is working smoothly - I think that is so great!!!!
At 11:47 PM,
Paige said…
Yes, this is a class of 10-11 year olds, but it was more than just the girls talking.
Eventually we started talking about where I lived and the easiest landmark to cite is Amnesia, a discotheque. So we wound up talking about my weekend plans at the end. It was not the most productive language-learning day for them.
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